Yes, that appears to be a spider.

This community is awesome.

Could we please include credit for webcomics?

XKCD makes linking with attribution super easy: Permanent link to this comic: https://xkcd.com/2684/ Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/road_space_comparison.png

I tend to hyperfixate. Every mistake I make or goal I don’t immediately achieve can become a weapon I use against myself. I have spent hundreds of hours in therapy. Meditation can help but it is really hard for me to get started.

I injured my knee a few years ago and after trying arnica and a bunch of other drugs to manage the inflammation the PA told me to try smoking weed. Within a week the inflammation was under control and I discovered meditation was MUCH easier for me after smoking.

Now I know when I start to beat myself up I use my vape pen. Two puffs and 25 minutes later I will be able to slow down and mindfully check in with myself.

I start with some breathing. First slow breathes, then even breaths, then box breaths. After breathing I do a body scan, I start at my toes and work my way to my face. Then I feed my thought to a candle for a bit and imagine watching them turn into smoke.

Within half an hour the vape pen will be wearing off and I won’t be able to stay in that state but I will be a lot nicer to my self and my family. Over the last 6 months I have lost 25 lbs and put together a new plan to find a new career, I am a few weeks away from my first certification since 2008 and have set up a new resume. I am making plans for the future and genuinely optimistic about my own life.

Pot and meditation have done what endless therapy and fists full of medications could not. I am in control of my own thoughts and feelings. I am able to make plans and follow through with plans that spawn months. I am in control of what and when I eat and sleep. I am a normal ass adult with responsibilities I actually attended to.

I started smoking pot.

I got a Microsoft Surface earlier this year. I have had phones and tablets with pens before but none were very satisfying to use and I have had laptops for decades at this point. This is the thinnest and lightest laptop as well as the best tablet I have ever used.

I no longer carry a paper notebook with me because I always have my surface. I have needed One Note for a very long time but didn’t realize it. having access to all of my notes and being able to carry all of them without having to find the right notebook as been huge.

I am so sick of this kind of thinking. I am not strongly affiliated with wither party and I can not stand to be told that I stand for X if I don’t support Y. I do not have faith that the democrats will fight for the things they say that they will. In particular Adam Shiff and Gavin Newsom are deep into the pockets of the interests funding their campaigns. I can dislike Trump and I can dislike Schiff.

I do not owe loyalty to candidates selected by business and party elites. I understand that project 2025 is a threat to democracy but I do not understand how the democratic party decided to put Adam Schiff on the fucking ballot if the fight is so important. If the threat is severe can you all please choose candidates that don’t make my skin crawl?

I research every issue on my ballot a few weeks before the election. I choose the candidates based on their merits, their platform, and their fitness for the position. Frankly my vote for my school district supervisors matters a whole lot more and the party affiliation of the candidate should have no bearing. Their personal opinions and beliefs do matter a whole lot.

The tenor of their politics matters a lot to me. For example Katie Porter is among the best of us, kind, accurate, hard working, and well informed. Katie Porter would have my vote but I cannot bring myself to vote for Schiff. Not voting for Schiff does not make me a Nazi who hates my trans friends, it is because I honestly believe the way he conducts politics does more harm to my trans friends. Not all democratic candidates are good, some may even do more harm to the party than republicans they oppose.

I just checked and every single textbook I own that contains a reference to this transformation uses an image of a sheep. Sadly all of my textbooks are in English. If I had any relevant texts in German or Spanish I doubt that they would makes this connection.

On an less relevant note one of the books introduces the idea of change of basis with a joke about labeling axes and has several different types of ax with corresponding labels attached and I find that to be a much worse joke.